Judge Urges President to Address Prison Strike

WASHINGTON — A federal judge ruled on Monday that she had no power to order the military to refrain from force-feeding a detainee at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. But in an unusual move, the judge made a direct appeal to President Obama to address issues raised by the hunger strike at the prison that has lasted months.

In a four-page ruling, Judge Gladys Kessler of the Federal District Court for the District of Columbia, rejected a request by the detainee, Jihad Ahmed Mujstafa Diyab, a 41-year-old Syrian man, to issue an injunction barring the military from forcing him to eat through a gastric tube inserted in his nose after restraining him in a chair.

Judge Kessler noted that the force-feeding of detainees had been condemned as a violation of medical ethics and human rights by groups as varied as the American Medical Association and top United Nations officials. And while the Obama administration defended its treatment of detainees as compassionate, she wrote, “it is perfectly clear” that “force-feeding is a painful, humiliating and degrading process.”

Nevertheless, Judge Kessler said she could not issue an injunction because Congress had barred the courts from intervening on issues involving conditions at the prison. But Mr. Obama, she wrote, “does have the authority to address the issue,” and she cited a speech in May in which he appeared to lament force-feedings. She noted that as commander in chief, Mr. Obama would seem to have the power “to directly address the issue of force-feeding of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay.”

Still, the judge also noted that transfer restrictions imposed by Congress had made repatriations to countries with troubled security conditions difficult, and she did not say what she thought Mr. Obama should do.

A White House spokeswoman declined to comment. A Pentagon spokesman, Col. Todd Breasseale, said it was humane not to let prisoners commit suicide and noted that at a news conference in April, Mr. Obama had explained, “I don’t want these individuals to die.”

Mr. Diyab, who has been held at Guantánamo for nearly 11 years, was recommended for transfer four years ago if security measures could be met. He is among 45 detainees who are “approved” for force-feedings if they refuse to eat, out of the 106 detainees participating in the hunger strike, according to the military. He is also one of at least four detainees who have asked judges to halt the practice.

Jon Eisenberg, a lawyer working on the case with the British human-rights group Reprieve, said they were considering appealing but were waiting for a ruling about the other detainees. But he noted that “not often do you see a federal judge appealing to the president to do something the judge would like to do but feels she lacks jurisdiction to do.”

The judge wrote that her ruling was brief because she had dealt with a similar request in 2009, which she cited, and because Mr. Diyab had also asked for an injunction barring the military from force-feeding him during daylight during Ramadan — the Islamic holy month that began on Monday and during which observant Muslims fast from sunrise to sunset.

Col. Gregory Julian of the United States Southern Command, which oversees Guantánamo, said that prison guards and medical staff members would administer meals to detainees who wished to observe Ramadan at night — and that the prison had the capacity to carry out mass force-feedings of some of the hunger strikers after sunset as well.

Colonel Julian said that fewer than half of the 45 prisoners approved for force-feedings were actually being fed that way because the others either ate in private or swallowed a nutritional supplement to avoid the nasal tube insertions.

Colonel Julian also said that about 40 detainees who had not joined the hunger strike and were otherwise compliant with prison rules were being put back into communal housing conditions. In April, guards raided the communal cellblocks amid the growing protest and forced most of the detainees into single-cell lockdown.

A version of this article appears in print on , Section A, Page 12 of the New York edition with the headline: Judge Urges President To Address Prison Strike. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe